Just For Kinks
by ValentinaTart
Summary: Stephanie and Ranger are finally together...but are they compatible in the sack? One-shot. Ranger/Stephanie pairing.


"Well? Did you read them? What did you think?"

I plopped the books down on the counter with a thud, earning a stern look from Connie, whose open bottle of nail polish nearly toppled over in all the commotion, and threw a resigned nod at Lula.

"Yeah," I said. "I read them." All two-thousand-and-change pages of them. The _Mercenary_ series of erotic novels by Amy Woodward had been all Lula could talk about for the past two weeks. I'd taken her copies of the books home with me over the weekend to see what all the fuss was about.

"Aaaaand?"

"I'm not sure yet," I told her. "Some parts I liked. Some parts I didn't." And some parts were just friggin' confusing.

"Huh," Lula said, her expression disintegrating. "See, I thought you'd like those books because of how they've got a hot naked guy doing hot naked guy things."

"Oh, I'm all for hot naked guys doing hot naked guy things. But some of the hot naked things they were doing..."

"Hmm," Lula said, stroking her chin evil villain-style with her thumb and index finger. "I was afraid of this. You've been with that cop too long and now you're stuck thinking vanilla is the only flavor."

"Hey!" I narrowed my eyes on Lula. "Morelli wasn't completely vanilla. There were a few sprinkles thrown in there, too. And okay, maybe toward the end our relationship did get a little stagnant-"

Lula gave a snort. "Didn't you fall asleep while doing it?"

"Only the one time. And in my defense, he fell asleep first."

"Sprinkles," Lula muttered under her breath. "Ha."

I was about to give Lula a piece of my mind when Connie came to my rescue.

"Give the girl a break," she said. "It's normal to get into a sex rut when you've been with someone for a long time." She slid the applicator brush back into the nail polish bottle and tightened the lid. "Although technically they were never together that long consecutively." She thought about it. "You know, Steph, I'm with Lula on this one."

"I'm not in a sex rut. And I'm not with Morelli anymore. I'm with-" I caught myself in the nick of time. "-someone else now."

Connie and Lula exchanged curious looks.

"Whoa," Lula said.

"So it's official, then?" Connie asked. "You and Ranger-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

This was mostly because I didn't know if there was an _it_ to talk about. At least, not an _official_ it. We'd only gotten as far as unofficial _it_ status before he'd been whisked away on another one of his don't ask, don't tell adventures. That was two weeks, four days, fifty-six (and a half) donuts, seventeen TastyKakes, five skips, two blown up cars, one disaster dinner with my parents and a couple thousand pages of bondage erotica ago and doubt had been eating away at my insides ever since.

Lula held a shaky hand out in front of her. "Look at me," she said. "I got goose pimples. You and Ranger. Together. Together together. Like in a naked sort of way. No wonder you couldn't get into the mood. You got your own dark mercenary to tie you up, slather you in chocolate sauce and slap you around with a sex whip until you tell him to stop, which you both know is just code for Keep going! Harder! Faster!"

Connie and I exchanged horrified glances.

Lula fanned herself with a copy of _Dangerous Mercenary_, the smallest of the erotic quartet, and brought her breathing back to normal. "Sorry about that," she said. "I got a little carried away. What I meant to say was, I bet you couldn't get into the books because you get to live them. I bet you and Ranger do this kind of stuff all the time."

My cheeks tinged red. "Actually...we haven't done anything yet."

Lula stopped mid-fan. "Are you nuts?" she asked. "You've got dibs on a real-life Alejandro dos Santos, the Dark Mercenary himself, and you're not riding him all the way to Pleasure Town?"

"It's not like we haven't wanted to!" At least _I_ had wanted to. I didn't know for sure about Ranger. Ranger had been incommunicado for all but one day of our so-called "relationship". "But he left two days after Morelli and I finalized our break up. It wasn't like we had time to ride anything to anywhere."

"Yep. I smell a sex rut," Connie said.

"You know what you should do?" Lula said. "You should get yourself nice and spiced up so that when Ranger gets back, all you gotta do is strap on a strap-on and climb into a sex swing. You can get those now that hook on the back of your bedroom door, so it won't take up too much space, even in your tiny apartment."

I tried to think of anything else, but it was too late. The image of Ranger and I going at it doggy-style with me on top was burned forever into my brain.

I pressed my palms to my eyes until the world went black. "Ranger isn't into..._that_."

"Huh," Lula said. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

I collapsed onto the couch on the other side of the room and picked at the white gauzy stuffing poking out of a tear in the brown fake-leather upholstery. Something had been bothering me ever since I'd picked up those stupid books. Like Lula, I had recognized the similarities between Ranger and Alejandro from _Dark Mercenary_. They were both to-die-for Latino hotties. They had both served in Special Forces before becoming security gurus. And they both had deep dark secrets left behind by a troubled youth and tumultuous past. Alejandro's deep dark secrets had to do with ball gags and penis whips. I didn't know what made up Ranger's deep dark secrets, but I was positive it wasn't _that_.

Well, _almost_.

I turned to Lula. "I know I'm going to regret this..."

"But...?"

"Spice me up?"

#

Just For Kinks was a small fetish specialty store located on the outskirts of Trenton. It sat between a home medical supply store advertising low rates on adult diapers and an adult video store with at least twelve Xs in its windows. Just For Kinks didn't have any advertisements in its windows. Its windows were covered by thick black vinyl, though in hindsight, that probably was all the advertising they needed.

Lula reached for the door handle. I grabbed her wrist. "Wait!"

"Nuh-uh. Tell me you're not chickening out already. You haven't even seen the penis plugs yet!"

I motioned toward the silver Cadillac that had pulled into a handicap parking space two car lengths away from us. An old frizzy-haired man wearing his pants too high stepped out, used a cane to regain his balance and wobbled toward the storefront. "Mr. Grogg. My tenth grade biology teacher," I told her. "He hated me. Had my mother on speed dial and everything. Probably still does. There's no way I'm going in there with him around to see." I raised an eyebrow at Lula. "What's a penis plug?"

"You'll see soon enough," she said. Then she looked at the digital clock on the dash of her Firebird. "This geezer needs to get one of them motorized scooter things. It's taken him three minutes to cross the road. No wonder he needs adult diapers. I bet it'd take just as long to get to the bathroom."

Mr. Grogg got to the sidewalk, made the step on the third try, and stopped. He looked left. He looked right. And then he speed-hobbled in the direction of the adult book store.

"Oh god," I said, bile rising up in my throat. "I didn't need to know that."

"You just got out-sexed by a hundred-year-old biology teacher," Lula said. She opened the driver's side door and stepped out. "If that ain't motivation, I don't know what is!"

We moved warp speed-compared to Mr. Grogg, anyway-into the sex shop. I stopped short just inside the entrance.

"Holy. Shit."

_What have I done?_

I stood dumbfounded trying to take in all the leather and vinyl, spikes and studs, vibrators and dildos, surprisingly lifelike mannequins strapped into painful-looking contraptions performing equally painful-looking sex acts on each other.

"That's it. I'm out of here."

Lula grabbed me by the elbow before I could make it back through the door. "You told me to spice you up," she said. "So prepare to get spiced."

"I've changed my mind. I don't want to get spiced." I looked up at one of the mannequins, this one bent over at the waist, her hands strapped onto a metal spreader bar. "I _definitely_ do not want to get spiced!"

"That's what Emma said, until she found out how important it was to Alejandro that she be open-minded."

"Emma Cole is not real!"

"No," Lula said. "But Ranger is. And how do you think he's going to feel when it dawns on him that he'll never have spicy sex again?"

A sick, sad feeling bloomed in my gut. Ranger had never expressed any disappointment in our sexual encounters. But then, we'd only had sex a handful of times. Okay, so getting it on in his Porsche hadn't been the best idea, but it wasn't like we hadn't each reached a grand finale, either. If Ranger wanted spicy, he would ask for spicy.

Wouldn't he?

Unless he thought I wouldn't do it.

And then he'd look to satisfy his needs elsewhere.

I sucked in a deep breath and nodded at Lula. "Tell me what I have to do."

"We'll keep it simple to start. How do you feel about butt plugs?"

#

Another full week had passed before I heard Ranger's ringtone chirping in my purse. I answered with a 'yo' and could hear Ranger smiling on the other end.

"When do you get back?"

"Tomorrow night. Maybe sooner if weather holds up and traffic is light. Why? Do you have plans?"

"Yes, but they include you, so sooner is better. Hint: there's cherry lubricant involved."

"Can't wait," Ranger said.

We disconnected and I collapsed onto my bed. I tried laying flat on my back, in my thinking position, but that was too unnerving since Lula and I had installed a sex swing over my bed. I rolled onto my stomach and rested my head on a wadded up pillow. I could do this. I _had_ to do this. For Ranger.

Probably it wouldn't be that bad. Sure some of the contraptions I'd let Lula talk me into buying looked scary. But sex had been a scary thing once upon a time and now it was one of my favorite things. Maybe I'd wake up one day and think the same thing about nipple clamps. Stranger things had happened.

The next morning, I went through my usual pre-date routine. I showered with the expensive body wash Ranger used to get myself in the mood and build up my courage. Then I exfoliated away a couple layers of skin. I tidied up my manicure and pedicure, de-frizzed my hair, slapped on a pound of war paint and tried on three different outfits before squeezing into a skin-tight leopard print ensemble that was two sizes too small and turned my B-cups into DDDs. Under the dress I'd secured myself into a leather and dog collar spike-studded chastity harness. A steel padlock cinched together the bottom half of the harness.

"Great," I said, turning to the side to admire the small penis it looked like I'd grown overnight. "I look like a transvestite hooker."

I shimmied the dress up and stuck the key in the lock. It took me a few tries, but I finally was able to remove the padlock. So Ranger wouldn't get to pretend I was a virgin. That was okay. He knew better. Hell, thanks to Morelli, who had scrawled his dirty little poem about how he'd deflowered me in a pastry shop on every public restroom wall in the tri-county area, _everyone_ knew better. Besides, the harness was crotchless, so the padlock wouldn't have done any good, anyway.

I was applying a third coat of mascara for courage when I felt the unmistakable shift in air pressure. I hadn't heard a knock or the opening and closing of my front door, but there was no mistake. Ranger was in my apartment.

I stepped out of my bedroom and sucked in some air. He was standing just outside the small foyer leading into my apartment, dressed head to toe in bad-ass black, a small smile playing precariously on his lips.

"This is not what I was expecting," he said. "When you said you had plans for us, I was afraid you meant dinner with your parents."

"Nope. No parents. No dinner. Just us." A desert formed in my mouth. I tried to swallow to moisten it. "I, um, have a surprise for you."

Ranger was still staring at my leopard print-clad boobs. "Another surprise like this one and I might keel over from shock."

So he liked the dress. That was a good sign.

Right?

I grabbed his hands and tugged him toward my bedroom. "Close your eyes," I told him.

I positioned him in the doorway and checked to make sure he wasn't peeking, then I wriggled out of the leopard print dress, grabbed a black leather flogger and slapped him with it.

Ranger nearly jumped out of his skin. "What the-"

"I'm so-" I caught myself trying to apologize and stopped. According to the BDSM for Dummies book I'd gotten at Just For Kinks, the worst thing you could possibly do is break character during a sex roleplay. Unless someone had uttered the safeword. "Oh crap. I forgot. Safeword. We need a safeword."

"A what?"

"To let the other person know if you're going too far. Something you wouldn't ordinarily say during sex. Like liverwurst or Uzbekistan or onomatopoeia."

Ranger stared at me, massaging his cheek where I'd slapped him. "I'm confused."

"That's okay. We can work it out later." I renewed my expression, slipping back into character. "On your knees, you filthy...um...crap. Hold on. I wrote this down. I practiced it all morning."

"Practiced what, exactly?"

"How to make you my bitch." I looked up from the dog-eared pages of my BDSM handbook. "Here. Put this on."

I handed him a small leather sack covered in steel spikes.

Ranger held it with two fingers. "Do I even want to know what this is?"

"It goes around your...you know."

"I'm not comfortable wearing spikes on the outside of my junk, babe."

"The spikes actually go on the inside..." Ranger looked horrified. "Nevermind."

I tossed the sack into the far corner and pulled Ranger to me by the waistband of his pants. "Let's get naked."

I popped the button on his pants and reached inside. Ranger grabbed me by my shoulders and pushed me away. "Don't take this the wrong way," he said, "but I haven't been this freaked out since Tank sent me a video about two girls sharing one cup."

"Relax." I edged my hand under his shirt and began caressing his washboard abs. "It's just me. You and me. Getting naked. Doing hot, naked things to each other. While we're naked."

What was _wrong_ with me?

I stripped Ranger's shirt off him, pushed him back onto my bed and jumped on top of him. He let out an _oof_ and his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Oops," I said sheepishly. "I must have missed my landing."

"Thank god I wasn't wearing the spikes." He looked up at the sex swing and his eyes bulged out of his head. He put his hands on my hips and lifted me off him. "Babe, this isn't working."

"Yes, it is! It will! It can!" I jumped off the bed and dug the small black power box out of the Just For Kinks bag. The eStim 3000. "Here. Just try this. They said it would be mindblowing."

I squirted a dollop of electrode gel on Ranger's abs, touched him with one of the torpedo-shaped electrodes and hit the switch. The lights in my apartment dimmed and Ranger convulsed. Then he rolled backwards, landing with a _thud_ on the floor on the other side of the bed.

He pulled himself up to full height and clutched at his stomach. "Jesus! Where did you get that thing? A cartel of Colombian rebels?" His phone rang in his pocket and he looked down at the screen. "I hate to leave things like this, but I have to take care of something at Haywood. Call you later?"

"But-"

He crossed the room, kissed me lightly at my temple, and made a bee-line for the front door.

I bent forward and picked up his black Rangeman tee off the floor. "You forgot your-" The door closed with a snap. "-shirt."

Crap.

#

"Uh-oh," was all Lula had to say when I told her what had happened with Ranger.

"Uh-oh? That's all you have to say for yourself? Uh-oh?"

"Don't get all high and mighty on me," Lula said. "I'm not the one who scared away Batman."

I could have killed her. "You're the one who said he was into all of this stuff!"

"That's because I was working on the assumption that because he was so much like Alejandro dos Santos he would like all the things Alejandro liked in the sack. Only now I see that was a logical fallacy on my part. You shoulda known better. You're his girlfriend."

"Not anymore I'm not." I sighed. "You should have seen the look on his face. I think he thought I was trying to kill him."

"He'll get over it," Lula said. "He always does. Remember that time you almost did kill him, when you asked him to take your car to Rangeman to have it washed, only it had been rigged with a bomb?"

"That was different. The bomb hadn't been strapped to his penis."

"Hmm," Lula said. "Good point."

I disconnected with Lula, peeled off the harness and changed into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. I scrubbed my face free of makeup, tied my hair up into a ponytail and set to work getting rid of all the crap I'd bought at the sex shop.

Who was I kidding? I wasn't spicy. I liked to pretend I was, just like I sometimes pretended I was a lot of things. Like brave or smart or grown up. But deep down, I was as vanilla as they come. Plain old boring vanilla.

Would that be enough to satisfy Ranger?

I didn't know. But I had to find out.

I grabbed my keys off the kitchen counter. "I'll be back," I said to Rex, who was spinning happily on his wheel in his aquarium.

I double-timed it down the stairs and was out of breath by the time I reached the small lot behind my apartment building. I walked over to my car, got down on all fours to check the undercarriage for explosives and saw two brown boot-clad feet appear on the passenger's side.

It was Ranger. He was dressed in an oatmeal-and-forest green-striped button-down shirt and jeans that looked like they were made just for him.

"I am so sorry," I said to him. "Lula told me I was in a sex rut...and then we read these books...and I got confused..."

Ranger came around to my side of the car and held me to him. "It's my fault," he said. "I left before we could get things settled. I forget sometimes that we mostly ever see each other when we're working. If we're going to do this, I need to show you more than the bad-ass black."

I looked up at him. There was a twinkle in his eye that I had never seen before. Affection, amusement...and love. Ranger loved me. And I loved him. That was all the spice we needed.

All the spice we would ever need.

"If you're not busy, maybe I can take you out tonight. Dinner at Marone's, followed by a movie?"

"Or we could stay in," I suggested. "Greasy pizza and Ghostbusters?"

"Sounds perfect." Ranger looked at my apartment and hesitated. "But can we do it at my place? That contraption you have hanging over your bed is already going to give me nightmares."

"Sure."

"And then after the movie, I can show you how I like to make love." My body tingled like I'd been zapped with the eStim 3000. Ranger leaned in close, his breath warm on my ear as he whispered, "Here's a hint: the only thing I need is you."


End file.
